He says it was love. What else could have inspired Augustin Paege into believing he could merchandise overnight accommodations in his small country inn, the Box Tree, at $400 a night? Even if the tariff does include Roll-Royce pickup, a lazy dinner before the fire, champagne breakfast-in-bed, your own butler and valet, midnight chocolates and champagne, the chef standing by to indulge 4 a.m. whims – the most luxurious caboodle imaginable. Here, in tiny Purdys, New York, is luxury so preposterous that we have moved far beyond discussions of mere decadence.

        “I fell in love and I wanted to do something beautiful,” confides Paege, the 31-year-old Bulgarian, born, he says, in “austerity,” trained in physical anthropology, entranced by innkeeping, flushed with the profits of his wildly successful Box Tree restaurant fiefdom begun only four years ago – in Purdys, then extended to Manhattan – with a $5,00 loan from Bankers Trust. “First love is very important. If I’d been an artist, I’d have painted a painting.”

        Well, sad to report, the love is over. But his extravagantly posh country digs are open now, and the intensity of Paege’s passion can be felt in every detail: antique furniture, goodies from the Farouk estate, treasures culled from Provençal antiquarians, period beds artfully lengthened to fit leggy contemporary bodies. Bath towels (60 by 80 inches) vast enough to wrap Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. Bed linens – so fine and aristocratic you feel wrapped in Swiss hankies – made to order by the purveyors to Buckingham Palace, $1,000 a set.  Alarm clock by Cartier. Fur throw courtesy of 800 Canadian lynxes, easily – they gave their bellies. Caswell-Massey cologne, designed for George Washington, in a jeroboam. Even the hangers in the Louis XIII armoire are works of art – voluptuous sculpture. As Paege himself observes: “They belong in the Museum of Modern Art.”

        And I have been invited for a test run. After collecting my sybaritic friend in the lively sleaze of West 45th Street (to the cheers of local degenerates), the Rolls pulls up to my West End Avenue fireplug. I guess I expected champagne en route. But William, the driver, in deep gray gabardine against the burgundy wool upholstery, is, if anything …rashly accommodating. He is nearly killed mailing my letters from the left-turn lane of West End and 79th Street on a green light, to a chorus of outraged honks.

        The champagne is on ice – a glass of my favorite Louis Roederer Cristal pressed into my hand as we enter the Box Tree in a small 1775 farmhouse. We tour the house. Every stick of wood is period or has some glorious pedigree. A decorator might estimate the total worth at half a million, Paege admits, pressed for figures. “Perhaps a million. Of course we bought very well.” We explore “upstairs” – the two majestic bedrooms, the Louis XV salon, the private dining room. There is a bottle of Romanée-Conti nested on the table, and spectacular fruit. “I didn’t realize cherries were here already,” I say. The humble innkeeper (as Paege loves to describe himself) smiles. “They are at the Box Tree.”

        There are twin Napoleonic beds with opossum coverlets in Consulat, $190 a night. But we are installed in François I ($220). There are field flowers, forsythia, lilacs, eucalyptus leaves to scent the fire, a canopied four-poster cleverly tucked into a niche to give it extra length, and on the bedside table a biography of Casanova.

        “Shall I unpack for you?” asks William. And I realize there are rituals of wealth one must be born to. I am too middle-class to surrender my worn carpetbag.

        It would be wonderful if Box Tree’s kitchen were dazzling, Still, most of what we tasted was delicious – especially the buttery mousse of chicken livers with its fiery after-burn of green pepper and a truffle tiny as a beauty mark. A robust consommé was too crowded with ribbons of crêpe for elegance, but the potage bulgare – cucumber, yogurt, and dill – was tart and fresh. Lemon-scented duck was tender, not too sweet, but the périgourdine sauce glazing the sweetbreads was fiercely salty, and an artichoke was so waterlogged each leaf dripped over the wrist. The sorcerer who conceived of tossing wild violets in the salad might have devised a more subtle vinaigrette. The kitchen needs some informed editing. Still, the wine cellar is rich, and the $22.50 prix-fixe dinner is good enough, and lavish with both appetizer and soup, a ration of Stilton from the sarong-wrapped round, and splendid Mexican coffee. Everything is done with style and wit and wonderfully amusing pretension by a staff who play at being eighteenth-century retainers. And with his instinct for acquiring treasure, Paege has hired Kevin, the fantasy actor-servant I first discovered at the Wine Country cooking school in the Napa Valley. Be careful when you muse aloud near Kevin. An idle wish is his command. Kevin will strew rose petals in your bed.

        The fire is crackling in our room. There is more Roederer Cristal in an ice bucket beside the bed; exquisite Lalique glasses, a box of Godiva chocolates, and two rosebuds lie on the fur throw. Kevin draws the bath, scatters salts from the south of France “to exercise the skin.” There are sponges, of course, as big as bowling balls, a bidet, Italian toothpaste, almond soap in the tub, violet soap in the sink. The perfumes are intoxicating. We fall asleep in petals of peonies.

        To break the fast there is champagne, of course. We beg for grapefruit juice. Soon Kevin appears with a rolling glass cart and a wicker bed tray. In its pockets: the morning Times, L’Express, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and the London Financial Times. Breakfast is served on exquisite Herend China: strawberries with crème fraiche, croissants and marmalade, truffled scrambled eggs in a brioche, quail in aspic. A numbing feast. My friend stirs his coffee with a rosebud. “It’s not right to pay $400 for canned grapefruit juice,” he observes.

        William and the Rolls wait below. Someone has put cuttings of lilac on the shelf behind us. Kevin wraps a bouquet of field flowers in foil and hands them to me. Still stoned from breakfast, we choose the scenic route, around a lake, down a lazy highway, home. I suppose if I were born to this, to gentle Williams tucking one under lap robes, mind reading Kevins drawing one’s bath, a governess to squeeze the toothpaste, Augustin Paege’s overnight in Purdys would be rather old hat. That leaves such mindless extravagence to love-crazed romantics, expense-accounted voluptuaries, the upwardly reaching nouveaux riches. What a lark to be all of them.

        Purdys, New York $80 for Rolls-Royce pickup from and delivery to Manhattan; $22.50 prix fixe for dinner; extra for late night drinks, though champagne breakfast, butler service, and valet service are included in the price of the rooms ($190 and $220). A 20 percent service fee is added to all charges.

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